Miss North Carolina, Chelsea Cooley, was crowned Miss USA 2005 at the 54th annual pageant in Baltimore, Maryland on April 11.

The 21-year-old brunette, who is currently studying fashion marketing at the Art Institute of Charlotte, surpassed 50 other contestants and was selected out of five finalists competing in Monday's evening gown, swimsuit and interview categories. The five remaining girls were to answer questions written by their fellow contestants.

Miss California, Brittany Hogan, 20, was first runner-up. The query for Colley was: "What famous person does your personality most parallel?"

"I guess it would be Oprah," said the future winner. "She has a passion for life. She loves what she does, and she works so hard to try to achieve everything in her life. … I try to emulate myself after that."

Judges evaluated contestants in swimsuit, evening gown and interview competitions. The judges included Olympic gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps, model and actor Molly Sims, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, beauty expert Frederic Fekkai, fashion designer Pamela Dennis, Raj Bhakta ("The Apprentice"), model Ksenia Maksimova, actor Brody Hutzler ("Days of Our Lives"), John Tutolo, president of Trump Model Management, and Robin Himmler, executive assistant to Donald Trump, who co-owns the show with NBC .

The new Miss USA is to compete in the Miss Universe competition in Bangkok, Thailand on May 30 .